Thursday, November 14, 2013

Elk vs. Photographer

While photographing elk at sunrise in the Cataloochee Valley of Great
Smoky Mountains National Park I turned around to see what appeared to be
just a curious young bull sniffing a photographer's camera. I snapped a
few frames of the apparent harmless encounter.But the elk
became more interested in making trouble than simply the scent of a
camera. He started physically harassing the photographer, escallating to
full on head-butts.

I quickly switched the camera to video and
let it roll (much of the time wondering when I should seriously consider
intervening).

Most people who see this ask why the photographer
seems to just take the abuse. I asked him in an email what was going
through his head. This is his response:

"My first thoughts were
"wow, he's getting pretty damn close here." But I've been up close
before without incident. I hoped being still and passive would see him
pass on. When he lowered his antlers to me, I wanted to keep my vitals
protected and my head down. I felt that standing up would provoke him
more and leave me more vulnerable to goring. I think that while
protecting myself with my head down, having my head down was a signal
that I was rutting with him. I was concerned at first, but when he
started rearing back and lunging at me later on, I got scared and pissed
off. That's when I wagged my finger at him to cut that shit out. I
was relieved to see the Ranger coming.

So I guess at some point
if the Ranger hadn't of pulled up, I would have had to disengage the
best I could. I've joked with my friends that at least he took me for a
buck and not a cow!"